REtinal Vascular Modelling, Measurement and Diagnosis

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Category Archives: Outreach

The second week of February 2016 was announced as Career Week in Copenhagen International School. Students had to find desirable place to working practice and contact to Workplace Supervisor. Chloe Wheeler choose Department of Biomedical Sciences of Copenhagen University and expressed a wish to spend a few days among staff and get an idea about the work in Medicine Institute.

In these two days staff talked to Chloe about the work here, demonstrated some of experiments and gave some general scientific information which could help Chloe to understand some basic mechanisms inside human bodies. Anastasiia Neganova gave talks about REVAMMAD project itself, her secondment in Berlin, collaboration between scientists and also about eye’s physiology and methods which help to investigate it.

As it has become a tradition, the Charité Eye Clinic celebrated a day to speak about the current basic and clinical research carried over the last few months. The topic this time, inflammation in the eye, was chosen due to the relevance of inflammation in many important eye disease, such as diabetic retinopathy or age-related macula degeneration, two leading causes of blindness in the Western countries.

Revammad was present through Sergio Crespo-Garcia, who was invited to present his most preliminary data on experimental diabetic retinopathy. Inflammation in the retina plays a fundamental role tightly related with vascular disease and neuropathies.

The public consisted of members of the clinic, pharmaceutic representatives, and friends and relatives, gathering together over 30 attendees.

Current week is the week of Erhvervspraktik for 9th grade students in Denmark when they get an experience of training in the place where they would like to continue their education/work. 15-years old Sofie Thorsen expressed the wish to spend this week working with Section of Renal and Vascular Research of Department of Biomedical Sciences (BMI) in Copenhagen University. Our group prepared intensive program for Sofie’s Erhvervspraktik. She attended experiment on rat’s kidney in our lab, experiment with myograph and got a general idea about modeling of blood vessels and vascular networks.

Anastasiia Neganova gave talks about basis of Laser speckle Imaging (LSI) technique, development of vascular networks, modelling of myogenic response gradient in microvascular networks, application of LSI technique to visualization of blood flow in the rat’s retina and chick’s chorioallantoic membrane. Anastasiia also gave the talk about REVAMMAD project when she explained the main goals of the project and the ways how it works.

In the end of Erhvervspraktik, Sofie shared her impressions about this experience: “I think it was very exciting to hear about the REVAMMAD project, what it was all about and what each person is working with. After the introduction to the project Anastasiia told me generally about the vascular networks. She also told me much more about her own work with modelling – especially the part about LSI and myogenic response I found very exciting. At first it was a bit difficult for me to understand all those new words in English which I didn´t even know in Danish. But Anastasiia explained it very well so I was able to understand most of it and I learned so many new and interesting things! Besides, Anastasiia answered all my questions about being a Ph.D. student as well. Being with Anastasiia and hearing all these things about the project and how it is to write a Ph.D. has definitely made me much more interested in scientific work and I think it would be very cool if I could have the opportunity to write a Ph.D. myself in the future“.

ESR Sergio Crespo enjoyed this September his secondment as visiting fellow at the Centre for Experimental Medicine in Queen’s University Belfast. Here Sergio has interacted with the researchers in different projects and exchanged technique learning.

As part as the Outreach frame of this project, Sergio presented to the institute his work within the REVAMMAD consortium. People showed pretty much interested about the multidisciplinary approach and it was a great opportunity to create network and exchange productive comments about the research scope.

After this visit, several collaborations seem to be promising and will contribute to the will of REVAMMAD in connecting research beyond frontiers.

Last weekend, on the 10-11th of April of 2015, the ESR Sergio had the chance to give a lecture to present his current research and incoming perspectives.

The Experimental Department of Ophthalmology from Charité (Berlin) has started to establish tight connections with Institut de la Vision (Paris) aiming for a close cooperation and collaboration in both clinical and basic research.

Trespassing frontiers, this interaction has turned extremely promising as the topics developed by the two partners are complementary and oriented in the same direction. Putting both teams together, the current research flow will not only become stronger but also will contribute to power up a healthy and fruitful international research collaboration.

Sergio, as other members from his lab and analogously people coming from Paris, presented during the meeting their topics, with special mention to the last and most updated results and the engineering machine and techniques that each center holds. This, we believe, has turned into a successful initial approach to find common points for further interactions and project writing.

Revammad turned also to be included in the lecture, as part of Charité’s activities and current project, calling the interest of our partners since we already approach a very multidisciplinary and international approach for Ophthalmology research.

Organized and supported by Pro-Retina foundation, this meeting gathers state-of-the-art experts for diagnostic advances, new mechanistic insights and progress in retina therapeutic approaches. This year, the plenary lecture was given by Prof. Steven J. Fliesler, from the University of Buffalo and with an exceptional and long career in Ophthalmological Research. All other panel of experts and speakers was equally exceptional.

Sergio Crespo, ESR 3.3., held a poster (poster entitled: Systemic influences on the integrity of the blood retina barrier: diabetes and hypertension) next to another 60 young researchers during the meeting. The poster session evening, soaked with wine and jazz music, turned to be an ideal environment for research exchange and networking. Sergio had the chance to interact with other scientist not only from Germany but from laboratories all around Europe and America. REVAMMAD, being the background story and frame of Sergio’s work, called the attention of more than one, rising the interest and praise from the audience gathered.

As foundation, Pro-Retina approaches retinal degeneration since many different focuses and not only research. The human being is the main aim and goal, so bringing REVAMMAD research to this colloquium was not only an excellent opportunity for research interaction but also contributing to a better acknowledgement of the last goal of Ophthalmological Investigation: fight blindness disease and improve the human life condition.